


la belle dame sans merci

by fallfromstars



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 15:30:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4065079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallfromstars/pseuds/fallfromstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“She found me roots of relish sweet, and honey wild, and manna dew, and sure in language strange she said: ‘I love thee true.’” [Cullen x Lavellan, and not; AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	la belle dame sans merci

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [La Belle Dame Sans Merci](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/119341) by Tigernaute. 



> This is a fic that was inspired by tigernaute's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" picture seen in the link. The Inquisitor is the default male Dalish Inquisitor, and I like to place La Belle Dame as a former member of Clan Lavellan now living on her own (hence the pairings). Also heavily inspired by Ben Whishaw's reading of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" by John Keats.
> 
> Constructive criticism is always appreciated! Thanks in advance. :)

  
  
**I.**

Mahanon Lavellan is pale-lipped and bright-eyed when Josephine Montilyet informs him that his clan is in danger from raiders that blame his clan, who birthed and sheltered the Herald of Andraste, for the rifts in the sky. He had been First to the Keeper not too long ago, entrusted with responsibilities beyond compare, the eyes and ears at the Conclave on behalf of his people. But the Anchor on his hand and the Breach in the sky keep him tethered to Skyhold, too far away from his clan to be of much use. The Anchor flares idly in his hand, his eyes far away, thinking of the bandits who even now rain down ruin upon his clan, his family, his world.

“Allow me to protect the clan on your behalf, Inquisitor,” Cullen offers suddenly, noticing the way that Mahanon stands at the war table, ramrod straight and trying to remain so. Once, a long time ago in Kinloch Hold, he’d stood the same way thinking of his fellow templars, the world glimmering before him. The least he can do as Commander of the Inquisition’s forces is act on Mahanon’s behalf, to keep him out of the same place Cullen knows too well.

“No simple bandits would attack a Dalish camp with such force,” he continues as Leliana punctuates her report on her Crows’ latest kill and Josephine affixes her bright eyes on Val Royeaux. “My troops can give the Dalish some much-needed support. If that is what you wish.”

Mahanon’s eyes narrow slightly at first; Cullen recognizes the sideways look from some of the mages at Ferelden’s Circle, and does not blame him. With the world as it was, even before the sky tore in two…Maker only knows Mahanon would be foolish not to be skeptical. Cullen was not blind; Mahanon spent much more time with Josephine and Leliana opposed to him. He’d respected the Herald’s wishes, but it was exhausting having to seek out his penance over and over, especially when Mahanon came to the rest of the war council so freely for help.

 _This means nothing if I do not help_ , Cullen tells himself. _If I cannot do this now, I may never get a chance—_

“…Yes, Cullen,” says Mahanon, raising pitying looks from Josephine and Leliana. “Go to them. Protect them.” He stares at the long border separating Orlais from Ferelden, his hand reaching out, almost as if to snatch his clan where they stood, and bring them closer to him, but—

He leaves without a word.

“…very well,” Josephine says after a long, uncomfortable silence. “Commander Rutherford, I believe you have your orders.”

And so Cullen leaves Skyhold within the hour, accompanied by Lieutenant Chambreterre and a well-trained battalion worthy of fighting for the Herald of Andraste.

* * *

  **II.**

The woods are dark and deep, dwarfing the noise of the horses and the armor and the marching, and there are leagues to go before any of them can dream of sleep. Lieutenant Chambreterre insists a camp is just up ahead, just slightly ahead, Commander, and Cullen grows tenser by the minute. Morale is lagging due to the strenuous speed that the march has taken, and while Cullen urges his men ahead and farther and faster nonetheless, he can see the way that everyone’s knees are bending, the way that the Inquisition flags sag slightly in the heavy nighttime air, the way that—

And all of a sudden there is a clearing, a bright open expanse of meadow after nothing but the heavy bark and weight of trees. And in the clearing there is a beautiful woman atop a horse as black as ebony, and she has long, flowing hair the color of the moon, skin marked with _vallaslin_ the color of the tropical sea. And she looks at Cullen and laughs brightly, but the laughter has no sound, robbed of the music it must be, and she beckons him closer, and he beckons his horse forward, ignoring the sounds of the men behind him, ignoring anything but the look in her eyes, pursuing the music he cannot hear but knows is there, _knows_ —

But then she is gone, and there is nothing but the clearing, and the men ask questions he cannot answer, and the whole night long he waits for her, even as the moon rises ever higher and the stars glow ever brighter, and he is certain he will die waiting, but that does not sound so wrong, somehow, because he cannot remember why he is here in the clearing, cannot remember the mission that he carried in his mind—

And then she is there again, astride the same horse, her hair flowing in the wind that was not there a moment before. The fire that burned just a moment ago is now cold ash; his men are long gone, their footprints covered by new growth.

“Come here,” she says, in his common tongue, and her words have a fire to them that makes him obey. He wanders towards her, his sword forgotten at his side, his arms out as if he is treading water. He crosses a sea of green towards the side of her horse, and she smiles serenely down at him, the light of the sun and the stars and the moon all at once. She is so beautiful it blinds him, and she smiles as if she knows.

“ _Emma lath_ ,” she whispers, as if she has been waiting there for a thousand years and would have waited a thousand more, just for him, only him. “My love.”

And she bends down to kiss him under the bright heaven, and he falls up into her, into the taste of her, the warmth of her, and in the moonlight her teeth shine like pearl as he joins her and follows her to wherever she may take him, she who holds his heart in her hand.

* * *

**III.**

She brings him to a cave and falls soft-footed on the earth first, holding up a hand to ease him off her horse, as if she were the one in armor and he in the skirts.

“ _Andaran atish’an_ ,” she says, and the meaning does not reach his ears.

In the dark of her cave, there is so little light. It is cold and damp, so he draws to his furs for warmth at first as she tethers her stallion outside. When she enters, he looks at her again, caught up in the fireglow color of her eyes, the soft lines of the markings on her face. He traces them with his gloved fingers. His tongue feels dull and heavy in his mouth. He can think of nothing to say to her, this woman who—Maker preserve him—she glows even brighter than Andraste _herself_ —shameful as it is for him to say—

Her hands reach to remove his gloves, to press his callused fingers against her smooth skin. She helps him shrug off his fur. She works at the leather that ties his armor to him; when he tries to stop him, she only emits a small shushing noise, the sound of the sea after a storm, and his pulse slows, and he lets his protection fall away from him until there is absolutely nothing left.

She shrugs out of her own furs and cloth, bare before him. She is beautiful beyond description, her eyes ravenous and open, her mouth sharp and warm, her skin smooth and silken and soft, so soft. And she takes him inside her, and holds him there, and in her tongue, she cries out words that sound and feel like devotion and promise and eternity, and he swears the same back to her, and he falls asleep in her arms.

* * *

**IV.**

She bids him to find all the flowers he can find, and he brings her daisies the color of the turquoise sky, and weaves them into a crown around her moonlight hair. She busies herself by weaving her wrists with the petals, and when he catches the sight of her, he holds it in his eyes, as if she might shimmer and fade away into nothing. She finds his eyes with hers and smiles, holds him there, feral in the shadows of the noonday sun.

He holds her wrists as he wraps the blooms around her skin, and she dotes on him and smiles at him and urges him to stay strong for her. “I hope for a lion from such a man,” she says as she runs her hands over the insignia on his discarded armor, and when she traces its outline over his heart, he falls into her again and forgets.

He is roused in the shadows of night by her voice, flickering over a candle. The shadows fall over her face, and she is whispering something like a song, something in her native tongue that makes no sense to his ear, but sounds interesting, beautiful in its own way. The flowers he made for her are discarded in front of the fire, replaced by a gilding of white lilies, every petal half a pearl.  

“O Falon’Din,” she says, her eyes skyward, “Lethanavir—Friend to the Dead.”

She turns to look at Cullen, but her firelight eyes are above him, beyond him.

“Guide his feet, calm his soul, lead him to his rest.”

And then he is gone, lulled into sleep as she curls next to him, her fingers snaking into his hair, repeating the song to him again, over and over, until it is lost in the sounds of the night.

* * *

**V.**

As time stretches on, Cullen loses himself and the outside world. He has seen five sunsets and sunrises; of this alone he can be sure. She says he must not concern himself with it anymore and bids him fetch her more flowers or sing her a song or watch over her as she takes her rest. He rouses her with kisses over those firelight eyes and curls next to her; she opens her legs and beckons him in.

It is this way for so long that he has forgotten any other way to be, to live, to exist. Surely there was something else before this, something important, but she feeds him petals as white as her skin and he opens his mouth and swallows the petals down, and it is lost just as quickly as it was found.

She runs her tongue over his veins, squinting for the color of what is no longer there. “Where’s the light?” she asks him. “Do you hear the song?”

He knows what she means, but he wishes not to speak of it. “The light is gone, _ma vhenan_ ,” he tells her, almost despite himself. _My heart_. Andraste preserve him, but he never could refuse her. He winces at the sound of his words. Her language is still clumsy in his mouth. More time and it may not be so. “The song is there every night, but your voice keeps it away.”

Shadows fall over her face.

She rises instantly and leaves him. The petals and lethargy root him to where he stands. He does not follow her.

That night, in the dark of the lonesome cave, he sees horrible spirits and shapes, sights he has not seen since Kinloch Hold. The men before him are in all shapes and sizes, men and elves, dwarves and Qunari. They are withered and empty, shadows of their former selves. With bony knuckles and wastrel cheeks they reach to him, calling out to him across the ages.

And they all have the same warning on their lips, scattered in different languages:

“ _La belle dame sans merci_ hath thee in thrall.”

And they all lament when he does not heed them, and turns over to his furs in sleep.

* * *

**VI.**

And as he sleeps her voice comes to him, but instead of niceties and his name and promises, it is another prayer, one with shadows at its edges. And he wakes to find her quite changed indeed, a wight with shadows round her firelight eyes and fingernails as long as her hair. She is so pale it is almost painful to look upon her, but her voice bids him look.

“The People swore their lives to Falon’Din,” she is saying, in the tongue they both share, “who mastered the dark that lies.” From her breast she unsheathes a long, terrible blade, curved and clean. “Whose shadows hunger, whose faithful sing, whose wings surround him thick as night.”

Behind her that selfsame god, this Falon’Din, flickers in the shadow of her fire. Cullen struggles in the dark to find his sword—he has not needed it so long—not while she sung her sweet poison into his ear—how long had she planned this? It could not have been that night in the glade—when she first kissed him—but Maker, it must have been—it must have—

“Lethanavir!” she screams, and her voice is filled with all the darkness of the Fade he had been warned against all his life. “Master-scryer, be our guide, through shapeless worlds and airless skies!”

And she lunges, knife open, at his throat. He braces as if a shield was in front of him, but he has none.   
  
There is a blinding blue light.  
  
She shrieks, a horrid sound, which pierces the sky and rends the rock of the cave in two. In darkest tongue she curses him, even as she falls to pieces in front of him, even as the shadow of Falon’Din reaches for her, only to dissolve on the azure glow—  
  
And then there is nothing, and it is as if the cave had never been, and Cullen shivers and shakes in the glade where he first laid eyes on her, his sword and shield heavy weights beside him as his eyes roll into his head and he is lost.

* * *

  **VI.**

Mahanon Lavellan is on his third week of scouting for whatever became of the Inquisition’s Commander. Josephine and Leliana keep diplomats and the nosy world at bay.

 _I sent him_ , Mahanon thinks, not for the first time during his expedition. _I sent him and I did not tell him._

Did not tell him of _la belle dame sans merci_ , the woman in the shadows. There are always witches in the woods, women lurking in the darkness, with different names and guises and histories, and Cullen had not been an incapable man at his time in Skyhold. But when no trace of him could be found—when he had been there one moment and gone the next—Mahanon had known.

Behind his own Orlesian steed, the Lady Cassandra, the Lady Vivienne, and Ser Varric, all mounted, look in all the cardinal directions with Mahanon for traces of Cullen. The search proves fruitless until Vivienne scouts ahead, fire in one hand and ice in the other.

It is her cry that brings the others to her, to the glade where a thin, shivering Cullen lies. The four of them are beside him in an instant; Mahanon terrified by what he’s seen, Varric struggling to get the truth from Cullen, the Lady Cassandra shouting for aid, and Vivienne using all her mana to keep Cullen on the side of the living and out of the Fade that reaches for him with long, green fingers.

“What ails you?” they all ask their knight-at-arms, but Cullen only shivers and shudders, murmurs and mumbles.

The cavalry comes with their horses round and they turn to their fortress.  
  
No one mentions the fate of Clan Lavellan, not even its former First.

* * *

**VII.**

They are a day’s ride from Skyhold when the light and strength returns to Cullen’s face under Vivienne’s spells and Cassandra’s careful eyes. He no longer hobbles but walks with purpose. His breaths are heartier, stronger.   
  
“And with no time to spare either, dear Inquisitor,” Vivienne tells Mahanon, almost too cheerily, as Cullen drifts to sleep by the fire. “The Empress’ little fête at Halamshiral fast approaches. If we are ever to make a true impact—”  
  
The Inquisitor does not look at Vivienne’s eyes. The tips of his ears smolder with embarrassment at the way this has all happened, at what has happened to the Commander of his forces, as what will happen at the Winter Palace if plans fall to pieces. If he had been anyone else—  
  
But he is not. He is only Mahanon Lavellan, and he must contend with what that name brings him.  
  
Vivienne and Cassandra retire shortly after, leaving Mahanon to the night’s watch. Cullen raises with a start at the full moon’s height, and there is a name on his lips, secret and lose, and Mahanon realizes what has happened.

“…it was her, wasn’t it?” Mahanon asks, quietly.   
  
And in that instant Cullen’s wide brown eyes let him know the answer.

“ _Ir abelas, falon_ ,” Mahanon admits, and he does not keep his eyes off of the man who was once the Commander, not until well after  Corypheus is gone.

* * *

 


End file.
